Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/829

Rh centuries had come to be regarded as hostile and inferior, the great mass of the people being for that matter looked upon as conquered, in reality or by sympathy.

And so the seed of discontent grew till ripe for a revolution that awaited only an impulse beyond innate love for liberty. The impulse can be traced more immediately to the example set by the northern United States, which, fostered greatly by the works of French writers during the century, reacted upon Europe, notably in France itself, where the movement failed through its excesses. Spain also felt the reaction, and gave her colonies practical lessons in dispelling the glamour of royalty, showing how to depose rulers, and in its struggle with France placing New Spain in a position to discover her own strength in manifold resources. The Gallic invasion accordingly precipitated the revolution.

Its aim was lofty, for Hidalgo already declared for independence, as revealed in the war-cry, Death to the Spaniards! and as understood from the long-mooted point that New Spain was not only a colony, but a conquered country. And herein lay a powerful means for bringing the masses to his aid. To Morelos it was given, although too late, to impart a definite form to Hidalgo's idea. In the constitution of 1814 he declared for a republic of the extreme type, with three powers, and a triple executive duly subordinated to a sovereign congress. While liberation and equality were elements alluring enough, they did not suffice with all, and others were needed at least to sustain the fickle ardor of these fiery children of the south. Visions of a glorious past had to be conjured up before the trampled Indians, and bitterness had to be roused into hatred and thirst for vengeance, the whole made practical by hopes of spoils, which were licensed on the plausible ground that Spanish riches had been wrung from the aboriginal owners of the soil. These baser allurements, dictated by necessity, reacted on the cause, however; but as